


no grave can hold my body down

by Nakimochiku



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-01
Updated: 2018-09-01
Packaged: 2019-07-05 11:45:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15862977
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nakimochiku/pseuds/Nakimochiku
Summary: "You woulda come to get me."Or, Rick and Daryl have a moment to themselves after they are reunited at Hilltop.





	no grave can hold my body down

When they are alone, Rick’s fingers find his face in the dim candlelight, combing back through the hair around Daryl’s ears. His eyes are still wet, expression awed and disbelieving. He looks as though heaven itself opened up to bring Daryl back to him. Daryl’s never been anyone’s miracle before, but that expression on Rick’s face makes him feel holy.

“Wasn’t gone that long.” Daryl tries to joke. His mouth wobbles awkwardly. It isn't true. He felt every minute he was away, worse than the ache in his bones, in his belly, in his head. Time fucking blended in that hell hole, irrelevant except the pause before that fucking song started all over again. Time itself was worse than a pitch black cement room and no fucking sleep, no goddamn peace,  just guilt and ceaseless noise—

“What'd he do to you?” Rick's voice shakes with rage and tears. He's never seen a man cry like Rick does, like he’ll pull the world apart in his grief. Sometimes Daryl wonders if his tears aren't a manifestation of his rage. Something concrete for him to point to and say _for this you will pay_.

“He barely touched me.” Daryl says. “Wasn't him that—” he bites his lip, doesn't want Rick to know that bullshit damn near broke him, or at the very least nearly drove him crazy. “Didn't hurt me.” That isn't true. “Didn’t do nothing.” He amends.

Rick fixes him with an appraising look. Maybe before, he would have nodded, turned away with one last affectionate gesture, the open invitation to talk if Daryl ever needed it hanging between them unspoken. Now his gaze grows steely, as though shoring up his anger. “What did he do to you?” He repeats, syllables clipped and clean.

“Kept me in a cage.” Daryl mutters gruffly. He didn't want to say but Rick has a way of opening up his mouth as easy as ripping stitches.  “Treated me like a dog. Didn't let me sleep—”

There's a beast inside Rick Grimes, savage as a waterfall or hurricane or some other force of nature. It’s possessive and it’s hungry and most the time Rick can keep it leashed. It rears on its hind legs now, and he looks for a moment like he wants to march to the Sanctuary himself and throw down with Negan right now. Then the beast is leashed again and all Rick’s tender affection is for Daryl alone, as though pushing aside his anger to enjoy the miracle of Daryl being with him here.

“Couldn't have fought without you.” Rick whispers, touching his face again.

“You woulda been fine. Woulda come to get me.” Of that, Daryl is sure.

“No, I need you with me for this.” He swallows, glances away. “Was so— the thought of him having you, using you— against me or—”

“You woulda come for me.” Daryl repeats. This is the truth.

*

They sit together on the overgrown asphalt. Rick is shaking still, blood still coats his teeth, paints a grey beard red, clings beneath nails where once there was good honest dirt. They sit together long after they've stopped talking. For a moment it is like any other run, just breathing each other’s company. And then Rick will see his blood spotted hands and Daryl’s rag crumpled between them and he’ll start to shake all over again.

Rick’s words ring in his head over and over. All around in a circle until Daryl can't remember what was said first. Being here is everything. Being with them, with _him_ is everything.

Rick is everything.  His own ferocity frightens him, he’s only just dipping his toes into the full breadth of it. And for that he needs Daryl _here_.

Being back with them here, now, is everything. It’s home.

Daryl has come to understand just how far he will go to come home.

“Glad it was you I found out here.” Daryl mutters into the quiet morning, just as Rick makes to get up. Rick blinks back at him through his blood soaked curls in surprise. He smiles slowly, growing broad and real and crinkling his eyes, baring his blood stained teeth. He looks like a wolf at rest.

“Glad it was you who found me.” He answers.

Being home is everything.

*

“How we gonna do this?” Daryl grunts out eventually. He sits on the floor, elbows on his knees. He has a well of misery now that will never run dry. He feels like he's sinking under it. He is mercurial, adaptable. He has changed many times. This has changed him. He is afraid to admit how much. He's afraid to toss a coin into that well.

“If it’s all the same to you,” Rick settles in beside him, close, loose. “I’d rather not talk about that just now.”

“But we gotta—"

“Just got you back Daryl. Gimme a second to bask in that, alright?” He shoves him lightly with a bump of his shoulder. Smiles a little. For a moment nothing at all is wrong. Nothing at all hurts. “Just a second.”

“Don't gotta bask,” Daryl grumbles. “Right here. Ain’t going nowhere.”

They both do not mention that he already has.

*

Daryl knows what Rick sees when he finds him standing at the gate: worked over, shivering like a colt, feeling as raw as an exposed nerve.  He tries to show him he's fine. He’s strong. Nothing Negan can do can break him. But he sees Rick close off and flare up, face a mask of hot rage.

_Don’t_. He wants to say. _Because it won't be me. And it won't be you. Don’t,_ he tries to convey with his eyes alone. _Don't make someone else the victim in my place. Don't put that on me._

Rick, God help him, sees but can't stop himself. He wants him back, plain as that, as hot and fierce and bright as a meteor. And he hates that Negan tells him no, looks for a moment like he's going to swing that bat right at Negan’s smug grinning face, looks like he's holding himself back, teeth grit, jaw tense, clawing at control with his finger nails and losing his grip.

Rick used to tell him sometimes Daryl himself was the only one who could talk him down from his white hot rage. Others tried, he said. He means Lori, Shane, Hershel, and so he'd pause to remember them.  But, he’d add, with a little smile, Daryl just has to say his name and it cuts right through,( through the monster, he meant without saying) through the fog in his head, until he’s him again.

Daryl wants want to say it now. Just say _Rick_ and have him stop. But Negan is right there.

He doesn't need Negan seeing more than he already has.

*

It's good to sit in silence in good company. For a while, Daryl thinks Rick is dozing. He wonders when the man last slept. Sleep hasn't found him easily in far too long. Either of them. He reaches out, means to push Rick’s head to his shoulder, to have him close. Hopes that if Rick wakes, he’ll think it was natural, that he slipped as he slept.

But Rick stirs just as Daryl's fingers touch his curls.

“Haven't relaxed,” Rick murmurs, a non sequitur. Daryl doesn't know where to lay his hand, so he lets it fall on Rick’s shoulder. Rick makes a happy little grunt and leans closer. “Haven't stopped since—"

Daryl hums. He gets it.

“S’just so good to see you I feel like a puppet with all my strings cut.”

Daryl hums again. He gets that too.

“Couldn’t get up now if I wanted to.” Rick says with a little laugh. Daryl hums. He doesn’t say for that, he is glad. He wants to keep Rick right here, sleepy and soft and safe beside him.

*

Rick’s arms are good and strong around his shoulders, clasping the back of his head, letting him hide in his chest like a kid. He’s trembling finely, and sniffling against the side of his head, hitching little breaths like hes trying to hold back tears. With every passing moment his grip grows tighter and tighter, like he wants to pull Daryl right inside him and never let him go again. Daryl doesn't mind because for the first time since Negan put him on his knees, or had him thrown into the truck, he feels completely safe.

Rick lets him go reluctantly, and neither of them mention the moisture at the collar of Rick’s shirt.

He’s home again.

*

“That time Carl came back with him,” Rick’s head is finally resting against his shoulder. They haven’t done this in a long time, many long seasons and roads ago. There hasn’t been the need. “Damn near skinned him alive for being so foolish but, he told me he saw you.”

“Damn near skinned him too,” Daryl agrees. “You raised that boy with too much balls, Grimes. Thinks he’s a one man army.”

Rick shakes his head. “Told me he saw you and I was so relieved. Just knowing you were in one piece. Still standing. Gave me hope.” He turns to bury his face in Daryl’s shoulder. Daryl can smell Rick’s shampoo from his curls, his body wash and sweat and laundry detergent. He imagines this is what Rick smelled like **before**. Subtly, Daryl nuzzles his curls. “And then I wished I could be like him. Hated that I didn’t have the strength to just go in and take you even though I knew you were waiting for me.”

“Found my own way out didn't I?” Daryl murmurs. “Ain’t exactly a damsel in distress.”

*

“Christ, Grimes, ain’t even gone fifteen minutes and you fall to pieces without me.”

Rick is still too raw to smile. A thousand things have piled on his shoulders and worn him thinner than winter ever had. The Governor, Merle, the baby, their ragtag little family falling apart between his hands. He makes a valiant effort to smile anyway, and looks deranged. “Yeah, we all know you’re the real backbone around here.”

Daryl pulls up short, fixes him with a hawk look. That isn’t true. But he makes a derisive noise, one of good humour. “Don’t you forget it neither.”

*

“Was always gonna come home to you.” Daryl tells Rick’s still profile. Blue eyes turn to him like lamps in the dark. The candle has burnt out, but the night is cozy. Rick’s thigh is warm against his.

“I know.” He answers, as sure as anything else.

_Thought about you all the time. Was worse than any other time I was apart from you—_

“Couldn’t’a kept me. Found a way. Woulda no matter what.” He doesn't know what he's trying to tell Rick, babbling uselessly the way he rarely does, until it comes bubbling up unplanned: “I’ll always come home to you.”

Rick looks as soft as he dares. His hand curls at the back of his head like it had when they first met again, pulling him in for his hug. Now, he pulls him in close and presses his lips against Daryl’s forehead. His lips are chapped, his cheeks are still a little damp. He can feel his hot breath against his hair. He moves a little lower, and even though Daryl is rigid, waiting for the other shoe to drop, he lets Rick tip his chin up. His bandaged palm cups his jaw, stroking along his cheek bone. This is more affection than either have dared before but it seems appropriate now. So Daryl doesn't stop the firm press of lips against his either, just accepts them, chapped and soft, pink and growing moist with a little hint of tongue. _Welcome home_ , Rick’s kiss says.

“I’ll always come home to you.” Daryl says again.

Rick smiles. “You always have.”


End file.
